Editorial: Cigarette makers try singing the blues

When the color is light in hue and its name appears on a package of cigarettes, researchers say manufacturers are trying to trick consumers into thinking the product is safer.

That’s why tobacco control experts are right to be suspicious when Pall Mall Lights became Pall Mall Blues and Salem Lights became Salem Gold Box.

With cigarettes now under the regulation of the Federal Drug Administration, researchers from Harvard University see in the new cigarette packages with lighter palettes evidence of a subtle sales strategy meant to subvert proposed FDA rules that banish words that promote certain cigarettes as safer.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of the Pall Mall and Salem brands, says it has no such intention, arguing that it just wants to guide consumers to their favorite brands.

Au contraire, according to a French study finding that simple design elements such as the colors, words and images used on cigarette packaging can mislead smokers into thinking that certain tobacco products are less harmful to their health. Results ot the study were published on Aug. 4 by Agence France-Presse.

In the study of 600 smokers and non-smokers, about 80 percent of participants believed the cigarettes in a light-blue package contained less tar, would taste better and would be less dangerous than the ones in packages that were dark blue.

FDA spokeswoman Kathleen Quinn said her agency is aware of changes being made to cigarette packaging and intends – before a new labeling ban goes into effect – to thoroughly “review the use of descriptors, including the use of color.”

We hope they do. Although the nation’s smoking rate has been in decline, one in five Americans still smokes and more than 400,000 of them die each year from smoking-related diseases.

A coalition of five health advocacy groups recently wrote to the FDA urging it to be vigilant for signs that the tobacco industry may be trying to circumvent new rules with color-driven names. The colors “white” and “silver” also raised a red flag for tobacco control specialists.

We hope cigarette makers don’t get away with it.

We’re counting on the FDA to keep up the pressure on the tobacco industry.